A healthy and vibrant organizational culture is critical for the success of any business. During a period of great uncertainty, organizational culture becomes increasingly important to keep your team aligned and motivated. With many teams working remotely during the pandemic, you may need to adapt your organization’s written culture to meet this moment.
Here are some tips on how to get started crafting and implementing your organizational culture.
- Define your organizational values.
-
-
- Decide who you will bring to the table to set the values. Will it be senior leadership? Management level staff? Will you invite staff to participate and select representatives from different departments or at different levels in the hierarchy? There is no one right way to formulate the team- choose what is right for your organization.
- Identify what sets your organization apart from competitors. How do you carry out your work differently? Your values should be unique to your organization.
- Reflect on how diversity, equity and inclusion will be included in your values. Will they weave in and out of all values? Will they have their own stand alone value?
- Craft statements to define the value and what it looks like in practice. For example: Problem solving- We practice relentless problem solving and approach challenges from a solutions oriented perspective. When we encounter a challenge, we come to our supervisor with potential solutions.
-
- Build your values into ongoing practices
-
-
- Integrate organizational values into performance evaluations
- Reflect on core values as a team during regular meetings.
- Post the values publicly in the office so staff, volunteers, and supporters are reminded of them. (During the pandemic, be creative about how you share them publicly! Consider posting them on your website or including them in an email footer.)
- Screen new hires to check for fit along the values
-
